The Presidential Effect on Baby Names
Class:HIS 320W
Date:2024/04/12
By: Aaron Soliz
Table of Contents
Part 1: Graph of President’s Popularity
Part
2: Table of President’s Data
Part 3: Map of President’s Popularity
Part 4: President’s Popularity over the years
Part 5:
Regression Analysis
Part 6: Online Research
Part 7: Conclusion
In this Paper I will dive into how presidents’ names can affect the naming patterns in the US. I will do this by taking the Percentage of each president’s name to see if there was a presidential bump or dip during their time in office. Initially I had female names in the graph but decided to remove the female counterpart as throughout all the president’s names they had very low percentage and no peaks. Throughout this paper I will use different techniques to analyze SSA data to make a final conculsion.
Graph of president’s name popularity from 1880 to 1913
Chester Arthur president from 1881-1885,Grover Cleveland
president from 1885-1889 and 1893-1897, Benjamin Harrison president from
1889-1893, William Mckinley president from 1897-1901, Theodore Roosevelt
president from 1901-1909, William Taft president from
1909-1913
Graph of president’s name popularity from 1912 to 1953
Woodrow Wilson president from 1913-1921, Warren Harding president from 1921-1923,Calvin Coolidge president from 1923-1929, Herbert Hoover president from 1929-1933, Franklin Roosevelt president from 1933-1945, Harry Truman president from 1945-1953
Graph of president’s name popularity from 1952 to 1981
Dwight Eisenhower president from 1953-1961, John Kennedy president from 1961-1963, Lyndon Johnson president from 1963-1969, Richard Nixon president from 1969-1974, Gerald Ford president from 1974-1981, Jimmy Carter president from 1977-1981
Graph of president’s name popularity from 1980 to 2024
Ronald Reagan president from 1981-1989, George Bush president from 1989-1993, Bill Clinton president from 1993-2001, George W. Bush president from 2001-2009, Barack obama president from 2009-2017, Donald Trump president from 2017-2021, Joseph Biden president from 2021-2024
When looking at the graphs above we can classify the naming pattern of
when a president was in office into decrease, peak, and increase(take a
look at table below to see where I placed different presidents). In the
case of names that fell under the decrease class, more often than not
their names had been on a downward decline from years before. In the
case of the names that fell under the peak class, they would shoot up
very rapidly and then return to the percentage it had before them being
president. In the case of names that fell under the increase class, they
would only see slight increase.
To understand why certain
presidents had peaks while others decreased, I would take a look at
their popular vote percentage and I found that on average presidents
with over 54% fell under the peak classification and below 54%
classified as decrease. Of course there are outliers such as Dwight
Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan who broke the threshold but still
decreased, on the other hand we have Grover Cleveland, Benjamin
Harrison, and Barack Obama who didn’t break the threshold but still
caused a peak. In the table Chester Arthur has “n/a” in the table
because he was sworn into office after Andrew Garfield got assassinated.
Gerald ford also had “n/a” because he was sworn into office after
Richard Nixon resigned.
Table of Presidents from 1880-2024
| Name | Year | Classification | PopularVotePercent | HomeState |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chester Arthur | 1881-1885 | increase | n/a | Vermont |
| Grover Cleveland | 1885-1889 | peak | 48.85% | New Jersey |
| Benjamin Harrison | 1889-1893 | peak | 47.80% | Ohio |
| Grover Cleveland | 1893-1897 | peak | 46.02% | New Jersey |
| William Mckinley | 1897-1901 | decrease | 51.02% | Ohio |
| Theodore Roosevelt | 1901-1909 | peak | 56.42% | New York |
| William Taft | 1909-1913 | decrease | 51.57% | Ohio |
| Woodrow Wilson | 1913-1921 | decrease | 41.84% | Virginia |
| Warren Harding | 1921-1923 | peak | 60.32% | Ohio |
| Calvin Coolidge | 1923-1929 | peak | 54.04% | Vermont |
| Herbert Hoover | 1929-1933 | peak | 58.21% | Iowa |
| Franklin Roosevelt | 1933-1945 | peak | 57.41% | New York |
| Harry Truman | 1945-1953 | decrease | 49.55% | Missouri |
| Dwight Eisenhower | 1953-1961 | decrease | 55.18% | Texas |
| John Kennedy | 1961-1963 | increase | 49.72% | Massachusetts |
| Lyndon Jonson | 1963-1969 | peaks | 61.05% | Texas |
| Richard Nixon | 1969-1974 | decrease | 43.42% | California |
| Gerald Ford | 1974-1977 | decrease | n/a | Nebraska |
| Jimmy Carter | 1977-1981 | decrease | 50.08% | Georgia |
| Ronald Reagan | 1981-1989 | decrease | 58.77% | Illinois |
| George Bush | 1989-1993 | decrease | 53.37% | Massachusetts |
| Bill Clinton | 1993-2001 | decrease | 43.01% | Arkansas |
| George W. Bush | 2001-2009 | decrease | 47.87% | Connecticut |
| Barack Obama | 2009-2017 | peak | 52.93% | Hawaii |
| Donald Trump | 2017-2021 | decrease | 46.09% | New York |
| Joseph Biden | 2021-2024 | decrease | 51.31% | Pennsylvania |
I only did the popular vote percentage from their first term to keep the data uniform
There are some other things I found interesting when looking at the
data, such as Barack doesn’t pop up in the SSA database until 2007,
Woodrow Wilson causing the biggest presidential naming pattern dip(he
has the 3rd lowest popular vote percentage in history)although he does
cause a peak before his name falls off in popularity, and John not
peaking until post Kennedy assassination.
President’s Popularity in the States
In the maps below we take look at the president’s name popularity during
their first and last year in office. With this we can understand if
Republican or Democrat president is more likely to cause an increase in
their respective color state.
When cross-referencing the maps above with the electoral college maps
for that election year, I found there is some level of correlation when
the president shifts from one political party to the next. In the case
of Woodrow in 1913 his name had popularity throughout all states but
come 1920 he would only have popularity in the south east states. I
believe this is because during the 1920 election the only blue states
would be in the south east and the drop in popularity in the west came
from all those states becoming red states. The same happens to Herbert
and Franklin in the 1932 election to a lesser degree, Harry to Dwight in
the 1952 election, Dwight to John in 1960 election, and more. In many
cases of the earlier 1900s presidents if one president was popular in
region “a” and it shifts to a different political party then region “a”
would have less popularity for the new president. An example would be
Dwight and John in 1960s, in map “Dwight 1961” he has popularity in mid
west and south east but lacks north east and west but in “John 1961” he
has opposite of Dwight.
However things change in the late
1900s presidents, I believe this is because before the shift of people
moving throughout the States and overall an increase in name and culture
diversity. When looking at the late 1900s and 2000s electoral maps there
are less landslide wins and a mixture of red and blue states. The
correlation we see in the early 1900s president drops off and the data
becomes more scattered. With the cases of maps “Barack 2017” and “Joseph
2024” being all grey would be due to lack of data.
President’s Popularity over the years
When looking at the names of presidents over time, I found that many names are on the decline and the presidential bump was only delaying the downfall. To support this statement I will take a look at regression lines to measure the difference a president can cause in naming patterns. I also found it interesting that when looking at the president since 1880 to now that there are greater increases caused by other external factors, such as the resurgence of Benjamin, Theodore, Calvin, and Warren in the recent years. I believe this is because of the idea we talked in class where people are looking back a 100ish years and reusing those names.
Regression Analysis
When looking at the regression analysis of a handful of the presidents
we can see in all cases but Lyndon their presidential bump actually
decreased the rate of decline. In the case of Lyndon, his time in office
didn’t seem to change the rate of increase. From the regression
analysis, I found that they supported my claim in that the presidential
bump is only delaying the decrease of popularity in the name. I also
found that my classification doesn’t correlate to the new found data as
presidents from different classes have the same regression analysis
outcome.
When trying to understand the presidential effect of common names versus
unique names, such as John and George versus Woodrow and Dwight. With
this problem it’s hard to tell if a name is popular because of a
president or another famous person. From the article “The Effects of
Months, Holidays, and the Birthdays of Presidents on Choice of Baby
Names” the writer mentions the idea of seeing the number of people born
on the president’s birthdays with the same name to counteract the effect
of other famous people. When looking at the data they provided, they
found that at least in the case of George Washington that “There were,
however, 17,322 persons named George in the database who were born on
George Washington’s birthday (February 22). By using the ratio one sees
that the rate at which boys are named George therefore increases by
(17,322 / 3,192 – 1) x 100 % = 443 % on Washington’s birthday. An
alternative measure is to look at the excess or difference between the
two numbers: over the period of time covered by the database, 17,322 –
3,192 = 14,130 is an estimate of the number of boys named after the
president because they were born on his birthday.”. Although this isn’t
a definite means of measurement, I find it’s a good way to filter out
the outside effects. Along with this the article did the same above with
other president’s names that can be found below in the table.When
looking at the data from the table we can see that the effect is not as
grand for every president
With the increase of name diversity and seemingly decrease in tradition
of naming your kid after a president’s name, the question comes up of
what is causing this shift in naming pattern in the United States. To
get a grasp of how people used to name kids we can look at “How to Name
Baby without Handicapping it for Life”, within this book the writer lays
the ins and outs of how to name a baby in 1922. When reading the book I
found that the writer based their beliefs on the seven core rules of “1.
The name should be worthy, 2. It should have a good meaning, 3. It
should be original, 4. It should be easy to pronounce, 5. It should be
distinctive, 6. It should fit the family name 7. It should indicate the
sex”, with this new information I believe people use to name their kids
on the basis of strong family ties, simplicity, and solidity. I find
that this ties into the older generation’s naming patterns and their
higher level of patriotism. When looking at the seven core rules from
the book, I found that only rules that hold up in modern times would be
two and five because they align with modern naming patterns. In the
present day people will name their kids following trends, culture
heritage, and individuality. Along with the previous statement there has
been an overall decrease in patriotism in the United States, with these
two new ideas we can see why there is a decline in the tradition of
naming your kid after the president. I find this shift is because of the
increase of uniqueness in the world caused by globalization and
technology. To get a better understanding of modern naming patterns
surrounding presidents, I would search on an online forum called
“Reddit” to get people’s personal beliefs surrounding this topic. When
looking on Reddit I found people saying things such as “ I just love the
way Rutherford rolls off the tongue, but I don’t think it’s going to
have a resurgence anytime soon. Dwight, Grover, and Harry are out for me
due to other pop culture references (The Office, Sesame Street, and
Harry Potter, respectively. Love them all, but no).”, “Ronald is a cool
name, and a fairly obscure one these days sadly. If I named a child
Ronald it wouldn’t be because of Reagan though.”, and “If I’m naming a
boy baby Calvin, it’ll be because of Cal Ripken, not Coolidge.”. I found
that in many cases president’s names would get overshadowed by more
relevant pop culture references, negative stigma towards certain
presidents, and lack of mention of recent presidents. This supports my
idea of a shift of naming patterns in the United States. To go a step
farther in the following article “ Naming Boys after U.S. Presidents in
20th Century”, I found that they had similar conclusions when it came to
modern naming patterns in the United States. The writer from this
article says “ We have shown that the fashion of naming babies after the
actual American president passed away in 60’s of XX century, while the
fashion of naming babies after a favourite celebrity has remained. These
results provoke a conclusion that the society of the United States is
politically more mature now than 60 years ago, because their images of
politicians are more realistic.”, from this we can say that people have
become more diverse with their interests and could care less about the
president until its election period. From this article we can also see
that the modern person consumes a lot more media than they did in the
past and because of that someone’s personal interest holds more weight
than the president. This can also be seen by the maps of president’s
name popularity(Map of President’s Popularity as
post sixties naming patterns became more sporadic.
Above is a primary document from the “John F. Kennedy Presidential
library and museum” archive that was sent to John F. Kennedy to show
support by naming their kid after him. This telegram shows us the level
of fascination that people used to have for presidents and shows the
difference in naming patterns as the parents’ names were “John and Mary
Grant”(traditional names).
When
trying to understand the shift in naming patterns related to presidents
we can look at an article that used the United States Census to see how
much more diverse it has become. In the article we find “Yet increasing
diversity is prevalent everywhere—since 2010, 96% of all U.S. counties
registered declines in their white population shares.” , with the
increase of diversity throughout the United States comes the increase of
name diversity as more ethnic backgrounds appear. With this American
culture is becoming a mixture of multiple cultures, and becoming a
breeding ground for creativity and uniqueness for naming patterns.This
goes on to support my ongoing idea of why naming patterns are shifting
away from traditional means.
In conclusion, I found that presidents can cause a delay in the decrease
of their name popularity but it can’t stop the overall trend of naming
patterns becoming more unique. With the shift from old traditional
naming patterns(strong family ties and simplicity) to modern naming
patterns(trendy and individuality), so would the idea of naming your
kids after a president. I hope my research can aid in the understanding
of why people name their kids certain names.
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